Adam Greenfield’s Walkshop

Yesterday I attended Adam Greenfield’s walkshop around Holborn, where I was really surprised to learn about the level of digital infrastructure that overlays our city. This is stuff that I block out unconsciously. For example I regularly use Holborn Station and I did not notice the fact that there was a Business Improvement District kiosk (with a digital screen) outside, a noise sensor to measure noise levels and by consequence the numbers of people outside Holborn Station or the QR codes on the bus stops.

We also found cctv cameras pretty much everywhere, but one particularly interesting one is a panopticon style cctv camera outside the Central St Martins Innovation Centre. Other things included sensors on the road which register traffic movements, (the only way you can tell this is the case is by noticing lines in the road left over by construction and a very small box attached to a lampost.) We also noticed antennas on top of traffic signals and buildings, parking meters with overly beaurocratic rules and a Boris bike station which has sensors built in to register bikes leaving the station as well as docking into the station.

Key Lessons and Questions

The importance of design in maps ie. Legible London maps on Boris bike plinths provide a service for pedestrians as well as cyclists – people intuitively understand what a physical maps purpose is in the built environment but do not necessarily understand a digital screen where its purpose may be ambiguous. I have to say that many of the digital screens I have seen in London, do not seem to work, or you are slightly scared of touching them because of getting dirt on your hands. Maybe digital screens are not as durable as a physical map?

The whole experience helped me to become more conscious of the city and particularly understand the sensing and digital infrastructure that overlays it.

Questions were raised by Greenfield about the necessity of cctv cameras – do we need them everywhere or do we just need them in locations where there is a real threat like Trafalgar Square, and the Houses of Parliament? Statistics show that in London cctv cameras do not significantly help to reduce crime.

The whole debate on democratic process and accountability in the creation of Business Improvement Districts and how these ‘place branding’ concepts are often commercially driven.

Ideas around social equity which justifies available infrastructure such as telephone boxes. Also what was interesting about telephone boxes is that their purpose and importance changes over time, sometimes they become advertising spaces, urinals or they facilitate the ability to make anonymous phone calls (only if you cannot be seen by cctv!) something which is becoming more difficult to achieve and perhaps more valued as time goes on.